For about an hour on December 28th, 1987, the town of Russellville, Arkansas was under siege. A gunman had gone on a shooting spree, targeting what seemed to be random businesses and people. Expecting a bloody end to the spree, the police were shocked when the man gave himself up. Once they discovered his name, Ronald Gene Simmons, they began to uncover a series of events that had taken place over the past few days that would leave many of them shocked to their core.
A Shooting Spree in Russellville Arkansas
Three days after Christmas in 1987, the town of Russellville, Arkansas came to life at the report of a shooting that had taken place at The Peel Law Office, a local law firm. 24 year old Kathleen Kendrick went into work that morning expecting just an average day, returning after the Christmas holiday. It was around 10:15 AM when the call came in to the police and went out over their raido of shots fired, with one person down. Kathy was shot three times in the head and would succumb to her wounds.
About a mile away at the Taylor Oil Company, Juli Cordano was getting settled in and starting her first day at a new job. She’s said that she was overly excited to be there and have the job as a bookkeeper, because it was rare for people to be hiring around the holidays. As she was getting familiar with the job and her duties, a delivery man, J.D. Chaffin came in and began to drop some stuff off. The two chatted for a bit when out of nowhere, Juli heard two loud “pops.” Confused and frightened, she looked in the direction that the pops came from and saw a door swing open. Then all she remembers is seeing someone raise their arms, outstretched with a gun pointing at her and J.D. She heard the gun go off, and J.D. collapsed. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Next, the shooter stepped out of the doorway, with a grin on his face and pointed the gun at her. She instinctively began to dive to the floor just as the man opened fire at her. She felt a bullet rip through her hair, and she laid motionless on the ground. The man walked up and looked down, then, assuming he had shot and killed her, stepped over her body and made his way out of the building. Juli heard a car start up and begin to drive away, she got up and went to J.D. but could tell he was already dead. She looked out the window and saw a gold colored car, a Toyota Corolla pulling out of the parking lot. The first two pops that Juli had heard were the man shooting her boss, Rusty Taylor. Juli grabbed the phone and called 911. She told the police that two people were shot, one dead, and the man who did it fled in a gold car.
Officers were immediately dispatched to the scene of the second shooting. The description given matched the description from the first shooting, so the police were on the lookout for this gold car. He had travelled west from scene 1 to scene 2, so Sheriff (since retired) Aaron Duvall headed further west to try to cut the man off, since they suspected that he was going to continue on that way. They didn’t know where the man was going, or if he was going to attack again, but they knew they needed to find him fast.
Then around 10:40 AM, another call came in about a third shooting on the EAST side of town, in the completely opposite direction they suspected he was travelling. It was at a local gas station, the Sinclair Mini Mart. Duvall jumped on the interstate and headed towards the Mini Mart where two people had been shot and wounded, Roberta Woolery and David Salyer. Up to this point, 5 people had been shot, 2 were dead.
Now, the town of Russellville was pretty much shut down. Every available law enforcement officer was on the hunt for the shooter and the gold Toyota Corolla. There was a feeling of dread that spread throughout the town and amongst the officers. Something to keep in mind when we talk and think about this is the time these events took place. Nowadays, we don’t want to say that these tragedies are so commonplace that we’ve become desensitized to them, but back in 1987, this had to be the furthest thing from anyone’s mind, especially right after Christmas. Byron McCauley was a reporter for the Arkansas Gazette at the time and he said that downtown, there were sirens, police cars, and ambulances everywhere. There were multiple casualties and multiple victims. At the time, it was probably the closest thing that a lot of the people had seen to a warzone.
About half an hour after everything began, Duvall was driving east on the interstate heading toward the Mini Mart crime scene when the unthinkable happened. Another call came in, about a 4th shooting. “There is a shooting at Woodline Freight. Suspect is still on the scene.” This time the shooting was at the Woodline Motor Freight company. A supervisor there, Joyce Butts, was shot. The shooter then took a worker, Vicky Jackson hostage at gunpoint. He took her into an office and told her that she needed to call the police. According to Jackson, he then told her, “I’ve come to do what I wanted to do. It’s all over now. I’ve gotten everybody who wanted to hurt me.”
The authorities were quick to arrive on scene. There were officers from the city, county, and even state troopers all arriving at the same time. They quickly established a perimeter but had a sinking feeling. This man had already shown them that he wasn’t afraid to shoot and kill. They were afraid he would kill Vicky, then possibly kill himself, or that he was going to try to commit suicide by cop. He made Vicky negotiate with the police while they slowly worked their way through the facility, towards the office he had barricaded himself and Vicky in. He claimed that he wanted to give himself up, but the police were skeptical as they approached the office door, guns drawn, ready to act if the man gave them cause.
They slowly opened the door, preparing for a shootout. As they opened the door, the man let Vicky leave. He then dropped his gun and stood up, hands in the air. Police were relieved that they were able to apprehend him without incident.
James Johnson
Once they had him in custody, Duvall said that he was taken into an interrogation room. The man showed no emotion and didn’t say anything for the longest time. When they asked him anything he would just stare blankly. Then, he finally said his name, James Johnson, and nothing else. So, the police thought that was the best place to start. They began to look up James Johnson and see what they could figure out. He never gave another statement.
Back at the scene of the last shooting, Woodline Freight, they found his car, a gold hatchback Toyota Corolla. They looked up the plates and found that it was registered to Ronald Gene Simmons. With that, they began to investigate their shooter, but they weren’t aware that was just the tip of the iceberg. It wouldn’t take long for them to discover the horror the man was capable of.
Ronald Gene Simmons was born on July 15th, 1940 in Chicago. In 1943 though, his father William Simmons unexpectedly died of a massive stroke. Within a year of his father’s death, his mother, Loretta Simmons had re-married. His stepfather was William Griffen, who was a civil engineer for the US Army Corps of Engineers. His work as an engineer with the USACE moved them from the big city lifestyle of Chicago to the more laid back area of Little Rock, Arkansas. Over the next decade or so, their family would move several times all throughout the state of Arkansas.
From an early age, Gene showed some odd tendencies. He would fight with his younger siblings, oftentimes ending when he would physically attack the younger children. He would do whatever he could to manipulate his siblings and even his parents. When he got in trouble, he would fly into fits of rage and NEVER back down or admit he was wrong. His younger brother said there was only one way to describe him; a bully and a tyrant. When he was in the second grade, his family moved to Hector, Arkansas, a very small town. They moved into an old farmhouse that didn’t have running water. It was about 20 miles from the nearest paved road. To Simmons though, it was a paradise. He loved being out, alone in the middle of nowhere, with no other people to disturb them. In his mind, it was the perfect “simple life,” which he would long for throughout his adult life.
When he was 17, Gene dropped out of high school and Joined the Navy. Once he was enlisted, he was first stationed at Naval Station Bermerton in Washington. It was here that he met the woman who would become his wife, Rebecca “Becky.” They were married in New Mexico in 1960 and a year later, they welcomed their first child, a boy they named Gene Jr.
Becky was the exact type of woman that Gene wanted. She was meek, accommodating, and dependent. She didn’t know how to drive, so she relied upon him to get around. He ran the household with an iron fist though, even when he was away. He had set schedules for meals, laundry, and cleaning. He controlled the finances, paying the bills himself and only allowing Becky a small “allowance,” which usually wasn’t even enough to cover meals for the family. In her diaries, she referred to him as “My Gene,” and while she expressed frustration in how he treated her, always told herself, “he probably knows best.”
Here’s the thing, while Becky was under the impression that they were struggling to make ends meet, they in fact weren’t. They were actually doing pretty well. Gene was just stingy. He had completed his time in the Navy, and back in civilian life, got a job with a bank that paid fairly well. After a while though, his know-it-all attitude and overbearing, controlling personality rubbed his co-workers and bosses the wrong way. For Gene, this meant that any hopes of a promotion any time were pretty much zero. Frustrated from his inability to move up the food chain at the bank, he quit the job and turned back to the military. This time, he joined the Air Force.
In 1967 and 68, Gene was sent to Saigon during the Vietnam War. He worked in the Office of Special Investigations. According to everyone he worked with and his superiors, not only did he do good work, he excelled in his position. He was a model of efficiency and proper protocol. The same controlling personality and obsession with order turned out to be an asset in the OSI. While he was stationed there, he lived in the OSI civilian quarters in Saigon. It was a life of comfort, to say the least. He had a maid service, cook, and laundry delivered to his door. He also had access to more commissary privileges as an officer. When he was away from the OSI and on R&R, he would often vacation in Australia.
Back home in Arkansas though, things were bleak. By this time, Gene and Becky’s family had grown by 2, bringing their total to 3 children. Becky lived in a small travel trailer with the children, on her family’s land. Even across the globe though, Gene continued to be stingy with the money. He would only send a monthly allowance of $40 for Becky to support the children.
So Far, So Bad
On November 30th of 1979, Gene retired from the Air Force and military service, with the rank of Master Sergeant. He had a 20 year military career in which he was awarded a Bronze Star, the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross for his service as an airman, and the Air Force Ribbon for Excellent Marksmanship. Also over the course of that career, Gene and Becky’s family had grown significantly, from 3 to 7. At one point, Gene moved the family from Arkansas to San Francisco. From San Francisco they moved to Cloudcroft, New Mexico.
It was in New Mexico that Gene began to reminisce about growing up in Arkansas, out in the middle of nowhere and he became obsessed with a dream of having an “off the grid” farm. In pursuit of this dream, he worked his children and wife long, hard hours to make it happen. They built rock walls, put up fences, and did various other labor intensive jobs from the time they got home from school until late into the night. Summertime was worse; the children were worked from the time the sun came up to when it went down.
In addition to working them to the bone, he also kept his family completely isolated when he could. Gene didn’t allow a telephone in the house. The children almost never were allowed to visit any friends or have company over, not like they would want friends to come over anyway. Their mailbox had a lock on it, and guess who had a key to it? Ding Ding Ding, Gene. He read any and all incoming and outgoing mail. Everything they did drew his scrutiny..
While he was forcing his family to live on crumbs, Gene wasn’t hesitant to splurge on himself. At one point, he bought himself a Honda motorcycle. Later a Subaru truck. There was a slight issue with this though, as an “off the grid” farmer, Gene wasn’t making much money. To buy himself these fancy things, he turned to banks and family members for loans.
Things for Becky had turned south about two years before Gene retired from the military though. In 1977, their youngest daughter, Rebecca Lynn was born. Becky had by then given birth to seven children, all of whom had been underweight. After Rebecca Lynn was born, Becky’s OB diagnosed her with an underlying health condition that meant another childbirth would put her life in serious jeopardy. He STRONGLY recommended that she get a tubal ligation. However, this was 1977, so to get the procedure, Becky also needed her husband’s consent. Gene refused. Becky begged and pleaded with him, literally begging for her life. Eventually, Gene said yes, begrudgingly.
After the surgery though, Gene was never the same with Becky. He said he could never forgive her for “putting her own life and their children’s well being over his wishes.” He stopped having sex with her completely, and turned his attention towards someone else, Sheila Marie, their oldest daughter.
From the moment she was born, Gene did nothing to hide the fact that she was his favorite child. Around 1978 / 1979, he started to actively groom her. All of the other kids had to beg for money for school supplies or lunches, and Sheila was spoiled with clothes and jewelry. She was his “little princess” or his “Ladybug.” The other children were only met with harsh criticism, demands, and insults.
When Sheila was 15, Gene began molesting her. When she was 17, in March of 1981, Sheila was pregnant with her father’s child. The night Gene dropped her off for her high school prom, he got all the children at home and told them Sheila was pregnant, but left out the part where he was the father. He told them that they were going to raise the child as if it was one of their siblings, no questions were to be asked. Becky knew though, and she fell into a deep depression. Eventually though, word got out and Social Serviced questioned Sheila. When questioned, she told them the truth, and an investigation was launched. Gene was “unashamed” during his interview though, and claimed he did it for Sheila’s “own good.” It was to protect and teach her. He didn’t see anything wrong with the situation, and dismissed everything.
Gene knew though that the district attorney wouldn’t let a sleeping dog lie in this case and charges would absolutely be filed against him. He planned a hasty escape for his family from New Mexico back to Arnaksas after Sheila gave birth to the baby, Sylvia Gail.
They initially settled in Ward, Arkansas, and Gene almost immediately got Sheila pregnant again. This time though, he took her to get a secret abortion, and told no one. When Sheila turned 18, she wanted to attend classes for a business school in Little Rock. Gene encouraged her, saying it would be good and she could get out and get a job after school to make the family some money. Once there though, she met a young man named Dennis McNulty. Shortly after meeting, the two began dating. This was an affront to Gene and his way of thinking, which was that Sheila belonged to him, and only him.
To combat their relationship, Gene again moved the family, this time to Dover, Arkansas on a 14 acre farm. They nicknamed it “Mockingbird Hill.” The “house” the family moved into was pretty much just two mobile homes that had been cut and modified to fit together. The only indoor plumbing was just run to the shower. To wash dishes and cook food, they caught rain from the roof in jugs and jars. They had a hastily thrown together outhouse that would overflow when it rained too much, flowing into the nearby pond. Gene’s big dream for Mockingbird Hill again was to have a self-sufficient farm. The problem with that was that the land was rocky and just terrible for any type of crops. To try and make it work though, he used the one thing he had, the labor of his children. Again, he worked them to the bone, from sunrise to sunset.
When he made a hasty escape from New Mexico, Gene had quit his job without notice and without having anything in place in Arkansas, so there was zero income, and he was deeply in debt. To make ends meet, he would take any type of shift work he could get. He worked at a law firm as a clerk, where he began to hit on a co-worker, Kathy Kendrick. She told him to stop several times, and when he didn’t she went to the boss. Gene was fired shortly after.
By this time the two older boys had moved out of the house and started families of their own. Sheila also told Gene that she was going to move out. He begged and pleaded, but it was no use. She moved out and moved in with Dennis McNulty. They got married, and Sheila told him who Sylvia Gail’s real father was. Dennis fully accepted Sheila and Sylvia as his own daughter. He told Sheila that he was going to legally adopt Sylvia.
Gene was losing control even more, and he began to physically abuse Becky. He became more of a hoarder, gathering different things around their farm; cinder blocks, pallets, sheets of tin and metal, and cars / car parts. He also went to a local store and bought a gun. He already owned one guy, but this was just an additional one. On Dec 18th, 1987, Gene quit his part time job at the Sinclair Mini Mart.
Back to 1987
The police had the man responsible for the shooting spree in custody. They knew his name was Ronald Gene Simmons, not James Johnson, as he originally told them. They searched his name throughout their databases, and he had no arrest records, fingerprints, or phone numbers on file. They only found an address. The address they found was to Mockingbird Hill. The sheriff sent a deputy out there to take a look around.
Once there the deputy noted that there were several cars 5 or 6 parked in the driveway / yard. One thing that jumped out to him was that they were not from the same county they were in. Different number combinations on license plates were assigned to different counties, so with a quick glance, the deputy knew that these were out of county plates. He knocked on the door and there was no answer. He walked around the house, and knocked on the back door, again, no answer. He tried to peek into the windows but couldn’t see anything. He found one window that wasn’t completely shut. He pushed it up and moved the window blinds to the side. From where he was, he saw a Christmas tree. At the base of the tree, covered in a blanket was a body. The detective immediately called more officers in, and they started a search.
As they went through the house, they found a male victim right by the door that was shot in the head. Beneath the Christmas tree, they found the body of a woman who was shot several times in the face. From where the tree was, they could see into the kitchen, where they found another male beside the kitchen table, shot in the head. Underneath the table, they found another female, shot several times in the head and neck. All 4 victims had been shot.
As they kept searching, they discovered a room that was covered in drawings and pictures on the wall that would make you think it was a childs room. As they searched the bed, they found a young girl’s body under a blanket. She had a yellow fishing line around her neck. She had been strangled to death. Further down the hall, they found another room that was COVERED in blood. There was evidence of a bloody struggle. It wasn’t one of the bodies that they had already found. They began to expand their search outside the home.
They turned to the vehicles parked outside. They ran those plates and they were registered to various Simmons family members. Using that information along with photo albums they found in the house, they began to piece together the identities of the victims. The woman who was shot under the Christmas tree was Sheila McNulty, whom Gene had molested and impregnated. The man by the sliding door was her husband Dennis. The child found strangled in the bed was Sylvia. The couple also had an infant son, Michael, who was nowhere to be found. In the kitchen were the bodies of Billy Simmons and his wife, Renata. Their infant son Trae was missing.
With the photo album and license plates, they knew they were missing more family members. Becky and four other children who lived in the house were missing. Gene Jr and his daughter were also still missing. As they searched the house, they found Christmas presents still hidden in various places and closets. This led them to believe that Simmons had committed his heinous acts before Christmas, before they had a chance to exchange gifts for the holiday.
As they searched the land, they saw some sheet metal or tin and moved it aside. Underneath, there was an area with fresh dirt. A few months before, Simmons had the children dig this huge, deep hole. They grabbed some shovels and began to dig down. Within a few minutes, they ran into some barbed wire. There was so much barbed wire that they hooked it up to a truck winch to remove it. After it was gone, they kept digging until they discovered some cloth. For the next hour or so, they slowly dug with small hand shovels and removed bodies from a mass grave. They removed 7 bodies. Including the two people who were killed in town, Simmons had killed 14 people. In the grave were Rebecca, their four school aged children, Loretta (17) Eddy (14) Marianne (11) and Becky (8), the couple’s eldest son Gene Jr, and his daughter Barbara (3).
The two young boys were still missing. An officer noticed two vehicles kinda off in a field by themselves on blocks. They went to investigate and popped the trunk in one. They found a small body, wrapped in several black bags. They went into the trunk of the other car and discovered the same thing. These were the bodies of Trae (20 months) and Michael McNulty (21 months). It was the largest family massacre in US history.
WHAT HAPPENED?!?!?
On December 22nd, the four school aged children left the home for school. Shortly after, Gene went into the room where his eldest son Gene Jr. was staying in while he visited for the holiday. He began to bludgeon Gene Jr. with a pipe, and when he couldn’t kill him that way, he shot his son several times. As that was happening, a panicked Becky hid in her room with little Barbara, begging for their lives. Gene shot Becky, then strangled Barbara with a fishing line. He loaded their lifeless bodies into a wheelbarrow and dumped them into the pit that had been dug months ago. He doused them in kerosene and returned to the house and watched TV and drank beer.
When the other children arrived home, he met them in the yard and told them he had a surprise for each of them. He instructed them to wait in the car and listen to Christmas carols while he took them in one by one to give them their gifts. After he took each child in alone, he strangled them, then placed their heads underwater in a rain barrel to make sure they were dead. After he had done this to all four, he took them to the same pit and dumped them in. He covered them with the dirt and barbed wire, then scrap metal. He said he did this to keep animals away.
The rest of the children were planning on spending Christmas day with their respective in-laws and were due to arrive at Mockingbird Hill the day after Christmas. So, Simmons waited.
Billy and his wife Renata were the first to arrive with their son Trae. He shot them each, then strangled Trae like he had done the other children. He drug Billy and Renata’s bodies to the kitchen and used jackets to cover them up. He placed Trae’s body in the bags and then moved it to the trunk of the car in the field.
Next to arrive were Sheila and Dennis, with Sylvia and Michael. Again, he shot Sheila and Michael dead. He strangled Sylvia and Michael as he did with the other. Michael was placed in bags like Trae, then moved to the other car. Sylvia was moved to the bed and put under a blanket.
Later that day, Simmons drove to Russellville and stopped at a local store to pick up some gifts they had ordered. He went to a local bar and had a few drinks before returning home where he drank all weekend and watched TV, with the bodies of his children in the next room.
Then, on Dec 28th, he returned to Russellville and shot Kathy Kendrick, who he felt had gotten him fired. Then to the Taylor Oil Company and killed JD Chaffin and shot owner Rusty Taylor. Rusty didn’t just work at Taylor Oil Company, he was also the owner of Sinclair Mini Mart, where Simmons had previously worked. The Mini Mart was also Simmon’s next stop where he shot and wounded Roberta Woolery and David Salyer. Then he went to the Woodline Motor Freight Company and found his former supervisor Joyce Butts. Simmons shot her in the head and chest, then took Vicky Jackson hostage to call the police. He waited for them to arrive, then surrendered, without incident.
Before trial, Simmons was sent to the Arkansas State Hospital to have an evaluation to see if he was competent to stand trial. He was deemed competent, and the trial was set to take place. He was given a public defender. Jury selection took less than 6 hours. On May 12, 1988, Ronald Gene Simmons was convicted in the murders of Kendricks and Chaffin. On May 16th, 1988, he was sentenced to death by lethal injection, plus 147 years.
The trial for murdering his family was held separately from the shooting spree in Russellville. On Feb 10th, 1989, he was found guilty of 14 counts of capital murder. During the trial, the prosecutor had brought up a note that was discovered, which detailed Simmons’ relationship with his daughter. Simmons, in a fit of rage he punched the prosecutor in the face, then reached for a deputy’s gun. He was removed from the courtroom in chains. On March 16th, 1989 Simmons was sentenced to death by lethal injection.
In both cases, he waived all right of appeal. He was quoted as saying, “To those who oppose the death penalty – in my particular case, anything short of death would be cruel and unusual punishment.” He had to fight the courts to be allowed to waive his appeals though. Reverend Louis Franz and Jonas Whitmore argued in court that if he was allowed to refuse his appeals, it could jeopardize the appellate rights of other death row inmates. By a vote of 7-2, the supreme court threw out this appeal, but the ongoing legal battle about his appeal had resulted in a stay of execution. He was actually eating what he thought was his last meal when he saw that on the news.
On May 31, 1990, then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton signed the execution warrant for June 25th, 1990. It was the quickest sentencing of execution to death time in US history since the death penalty had been reinstated in 1976. He refused all visitors, clergy, and legal aid. His last words were, “Justice delayed finally being done is justifiable homicide.”
On June 25th, 1990, Ronald Gene Simmos was executed by the state of Arkansas by lethal injection. No surviving relatives claimed his body, and he was buried in a potter’s field.
sources for this episode
Ronald Gene Simmons #131 | clarkprosecutor.org
Ronald Gene Simmons | murderpedia.org
Murder Mystery: Lambs to the Slaughter Part 1 | aymag.com
Ronald Gene Simmons Killed 16 People — 14 Of Them Were His Family | allthatsinteresting.com
Ronald Gene Simmons | wikipedia.org
The Christmas Killer: Ronald Gene Simmons | medium.com
Simmons, Ronald Gene | encyclopediaofarkansas.net
Homicide for the Holidays, S2 E5
